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It’s the difference between Yaletown and Gastown restaurants in a nutshell. At West Oak in Yaletown, the female servers are in black shorts and wraparound tops, eye candy, à la Cactus Club. What it’s not is tattoos, T-shirts, beards and the vintage-wear of Gastown.

It was a culture shock after reviewing so many new restaurants in Gastown and the Downtown Eastside over the last year (openings are not as brisk in Yaletown) to re-enter this blingier part of town. It’s Canucks and Hollywood turf. The Canucks had a team dinner there recently, complete with wives, and since so many players live in the ‘hood, they visit on their own, too.

Owner Peter Girges says he hosted his friend Jimmy Kimmel’s bachelor party at the restaurant four months ago, shortly after West Oak opened. “I’ve been around a long time,” Girges LOLs via email when I ask about the friendship and party.

“We’ve had all kinds of celebrities since we opened,” he said later, by phone, rattling off the names of Pamela Anderson, Seth Rogen, Matt Dillon and Owen Wilson. Girge divulges that at Kimmel’s bachelor party, they biked around Stanley Park, ate and drank a lot, obviously leaving out all the details.

I mistakenly figured the food and the room (old-growth timber supports, brick, dark hues) pitched to male sensibilities but on a second visit, the room was heavily estrogenated with a table of 12 women and another four-top of women — handily outnumbering the other sex. As the room fills and voices bounce around the hard surfaces, it can get very loud.

Yaletown insiders will know Girges when he was doing food and beverage operations for Opus Hotel. (Remember 100 Nights and Nights, Cento Notti?) and he was, for a time, involved in his uncle Emad Yacoub’s Glowbal group of restaurants. (In 2010 Business in Vancouver reported that Yacoub sued Girges for misrepresenting his role in Glowbal’s growth and success.)

The menu would most definitely satisfy NHL players (and Pamela Anderson). A $175 platter for four people, with 48-ounce rib-eye, rack of lamb, prawns, sablefish and vegetables, perhaps? Or a tenderloin? Or 12-ounce striploin? Or a 14-ounce rib-eye?

Dishes are familiar and comfortable. They’re listed by the main ingredient, as in wild B.C. salmon, braised lamb shank and Queen Charlotte halibut (or should that be Haida Gwaii?). West Oak is a bit of a U-turn from Girges’ previous business in the same space called Chinois, a modern Chinese restaurant. I visited once but didn’t write it up. Vancouver is one of the world’s top cities for Chinese food, and Chinois didn’t have a chance.

Girges brought in a new chef for West Oak and it’s none other than Tim Cuff. I scribbled about his food when he was the executive chef at Aura at Nita Lake Lodge in Whistler. At the time, I thought he was second only to James Walt (Araxi Restaurant) in Whistler. (Cuff has also worked as a sous chef at Cincin and at West restaurants.)

This is a very different Cuff from the Nita Lake Cuff. No lime-injected watermelon with scallop, spot prawn and cuttlefish; no sous vide lamb loin wrapped in merguez (with pine nuts and sunchoke gratin), or sous vide duck (dried in the fridge for two days to concentrate flavour) or duck and liver parfait with nettles. And definitely no rooftop vegetable garden.

Cuff plays up the ingredients. “It’s all sustainable, local, seasonable. We wanted it to be somewhere between Blue Water Café and Coast,” he says. “It’s casual dining with great food. Anyone can come in and enjoy the familiar foods. I’m doing more braising and old techniques and treat them really, really well.”

The menu describes the steaks as “naturally raised in an open, stress-free environment by farmers committed to compassionate animal care, no antibiotics, hormones or growth stimulants.” It’s perhaps a little breathless considering it’s a de rigueur trend in higher-end restaurants.

While it’s not cutting-edge cuisine, Cuff does a good job of pleasing palates that prefer good, simple food and dishes include greatest hits pastas, salmon (wild), a burger, braised lamb shanks, roast chicken and a selection of steaks.

The quality he speaks of is there — the seafood is fresh and cooked like it would have been at Cincin. The sablefish had a golden crust and flaked apart; crab cakes tasted of good crab. A holdover from Chinois, the Chinois prawn dish isn’t a fine piece of work but the deep-fried batter and spicy aioli trigger a lust for fat.

The striploin steak I sampled was nicely marbled and richly flavoured. The burger with a half pound of triple-A meat wasn’t as juicy as could be, but the bun was better than most and the triple-cooked fries, which can be ordered as a side, get a high-five. The russet potatoes go through a punishing process to get to a rather hefty, crispy but not oily state. They’re steamed, blanched, and fried and frozen in between the steps.

Desserts are simplicity itself and speak to everyone (who’s not afraid of gluten): a half dozen chocolate chip cookies, with dark and white chocolate, hot out of the oven; so hot, in fact, it hadn’t firmed up and bent in my hand. And if you like key lime pie, this one has a bracing amount of lime.

The wine list isn’t a sprawling show-offy one, but it does allow for money’s-no-object celebrating with some bottles soaring past $200.

A couple of design details detracted from my comfort and well-being. Sitting down upon the cushioned bench seating, I sank a few inches, so my partner, on a firmer chair sat looking down upon me from a higher elevation than usual across the table. The menu was awkwardly big; putting it down on the table was like parking a Hummer. Too many menus, I find, go for drama; they’re too large, too heavy and clunky. Inside, menu writers get creative with weird categories and the designer thinks everyone’s got 20-year-old eyes, opting for print that’s illegible under candle power. The worst is when it’s large, flammable and a candle burns on the table. This menu’s nice and succinct but it should be parked on an eleven-by-eight sheet. There! Off my chest!

West Oak

1035 Mainland St. | 604-629-8808

Info: Westoakrestaurant.com

Open: daily for lunch and dinner.

Overall: 3.5/5 stars

Food: 3.5/5 stars

Ambience: 3.5/5 stars

Service: 3.5/5 stars

Price: $$

Restaurant visits are conducted anonymously and interviews are done by phone. Reviews are rated out of five stars.

$: Less than $60 for two without wine, tip and tax. $$: $60 to $120 $$$: more than $120Blog: vancouversun.com/miastainsbyTwitter: Twitter.com/miastainsby

VANCOUVER SUN RESTAURANT GUIDE: vancouversun.com/restaurantguide

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Restaurant review: Yaletown’s West Oak a celebrity draw

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